The Salt Lake Tribune
Friday, August 8, 2008
Utah: Life devastated
I hate to be a homer, but I'm bursting my buttons with pride over a native Utahn making international news.

Utah's Dugway Proving Ground produced one of two strains of anthrax bacillus that FBI investigators say was used in the September 2001 direct-mail campaign that killed five, injured 17 and terrorized millions.

Our pestilent neighbor, "Dugway Ames spore - 1997" — friends call him "RMR -1029," was one of two anthrax strains that the FBI says Army scientist Bruce Ivins combined to produce a the bug that he mailed to public officials and media outlets.

Not since 1968, when Dugway's biological and chemcial warfare center accidentally killed 6,000 sheep with nerve gas, has the facility, which is conveniently located downwind of Provo-Orem, gotten such media attention.

Still, I'm not sure I want to throw a block party for RMR -1029.
posted by gwarchol @ 8:36 AM |

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